I strongly dislike literary analysis.
That must be specified, or I will appear to be contradicting myself. I do like explanation on poetry (I said poetry, not "And this / Is / Because we can never make a decent rhyme so we counterbalance that by making one verse two letters long and the next one / A whole paragraph."), and I like teachers that come up and say "See here how the narration was flowing, but then this character comes in the middle of it to say something? That is a technique used today in movies, and he was using it way back then! And you can see here that this old guy is the author himself, and in one line the young lady was avenged.".
What I dislike beyond the comprehension of any petty academic is the bland analysis for the analysis, "mental masturbation". "O emprego da coisa-personagem na obra euclidiana." "A releitura deciana do escrever machadiano." Antonio Candido (no specific quotes needed here).
But I stray far from my original intent, made obvious in the title.
"In A.D. 2101 war was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha ha ha ha ....
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every 'ZIG'!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'ZIG'.
Captain: For great justice."
I had to, did I not?
On to my point.
Why did "All your base are belong to us" become the cult sentence? Why not "Somebody set up us the bomb." or "You know what you doing." or "You have no chance to survive make your time."? Or even the subtle "Common sentence !!" or "Scream." (the punctuation!)?
"You have no chance to survive make your time" has much greater impact on certain occasions (eg, Quake Deathmatch) than "All your base". Or in face of any sabotage or anything that goes wrong, "Somebody set up us the bomb". And "How are you gentlemen !!" as a greeting in any text based environment. Even "What you say !!" has a lot of personality on its own.
But for some reason, "All your base" was chosen as the greater representation of SNK-glish. And that in face of Samurai Shodown's "Victoly!", even. Of course, many people have no idea where it comes from; for most it is just a funny sentence overused everywhere.
Returning to the point of two paragraphs above, perhaps the fate of this sentence was decided by the complete uselessness of it in everyday life. "All your base are belong to us." You cannot use it anywhere without seeing you hammered it into the situation to make it fit. It makes very little sense in any environment other than game set in space where one faction conquers the bases of another. Perhaps it was this absurdity that made it soar above the others.
Whee, that was a great analysis, no? Indeed, the first part of this post has nothing to do with this at all. But I had to say something to that extent sometime.
WASHINGTON - With the recounting done, it is confirmed George W. Bush is the new President. On this matter, a Democrat said, "Somebody set up us the Bush!".
Falando nisso, um amigo deu tradução melhor ao nome do mencionado presidente; embora não seja literal, aceita-se a licença poética em prol da melhor representação da figura: Jorge Moita Ambulante.
I need a Vorpal Blade to protect me from the Doorknobby of Many Pages.
Posted by Etienne at February 3, 2003 04:09 PM